Month: August 2015

This week, we cover the first Japanese expeditions to Europe. How was it decided that a group of samurai should be dispatched to Rome? Were there really samurai who were also technically knights? How scandalized were the European upper classes by the idea of chopsticks? All that and more, this week!

This Japan Times article on 400 years of bilateral Japan-Spain relations

Ellis, Robert Richmond. “Japanese and Spaniards in the Christian Century.”

Elisonas, Jurgis. “Christianity and the Daimyo” in The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol 4.

Tucci, Giuseppe. “Japanese Ambassadors as Roman Patricians.” East and West 2, No 2( July 1951).

Images

The members of the Tensho Embassy with Pope Gregory XIII.The members of the Tensho embassy as depicted in a German pamphlet from the time.The European style portrait given to Hasekura as a gift when he left Europe.Hasekura at prayer in European style dress.Though the original San Juan Bautista is long gone, you can go see this carefully made replica to get some idea of the scale of the ship.The route taken by Hasekura and company to Europe and back.Hasekura Tsunenaga (in white) depicted in a fresco at the Qirinal Palace.These daggers were purchased by Hasekura in the Philippines during his return journey, and now reside in the Iwate Prefectural Museum.Though he was less than popular with the domain government at the time of his death, today Hasekura is celebrated as a pioneer of Japan’s relations with the West.

This week, we cover the rise to global fame of one of Japan’s greatest cultural ambassadors: Godzilla. How did a monster designed as a metaphor about the bomb become emblematic of postwar Japan? Find out this week!

Another NY Times piece on the original movie, focusing on its low budget

Images

Honda Ishiro (left) on the set of the original Godzilla.The cheap effects of the original Godzilla didn’t hold it back from success; after all, low overhead meant the franchise needed a smaller fanbase to succeed.Raymond Burr was very carefully inserted into a recut of the original film for the 1956 US release, Godzilla: King of the Monsters.Nakajima Haruo, the man in the Godzilla suit in the original movies, still does fan tours and is generally just a great guy.Pulgasari, a masterpiece of socialist filmmaking.

In the final episode of our series on the atomic bomb, we’ll talk a bit about some other theories related to the bomb before closing with some general thoughts about the bomb and what it says about how we approach and write history.

One of the film posters for The Beginning or the End.Another poster for the movie.Harry S. Truman announces the unconditional surrender of Japan, August 15, 1945. His views on the bomb appear somewhat conflicted; while he always defended its use in public in private he expressed some reservations about its power and after August 10, 1945 he called a halt to all further uses of the weapon. According to witnesses, he said he didn’t feel comfortable “killing all those kids.”In this scene from The Beginning or the End, planners determine the nature of the attack on Hiroshima. The movie contained several substantial historical “embellishments”.

This week, we look at the Revisionist critiques of the atomic bomb. Why did America use it, and was it really necessary to end the Pacific War?

Listen to the episode here. Find the sources for this episode in the source list for the previous post.

Images

Seeing images like this one of a woman whose skin has the patterns of her kimono burned onto it, it’s not surprising why people began to question the utility of the atomic bomb.Gar Alperovitz’s Atomic Diplomacy (republished in the 1990s as The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb) was for decades the definitive work of revisionism in reference to the atomic bomb. Unfortunately for Alperovitz, archival revelations in the 1990s utterly discredited his work. The man shadily looking at you on the book’s cover, by the by, is Secretary of State James Byrnes, who Alperovitz uses as the villain of the piece for cunningly manipulating President Truman into using the bomb to intimidate the Soviets in a game of ruthless power politics.Tsuyoshi Hasegawa’s Racing the Enemy is the most recent and best researched work in the revisionist camp.Tsuyoshi Hasegawa’s central thesis in Racing the Enemy is that President Harry Truman and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin were competing (racing, you might say) to see how much of the former Japanese empire each could acquire. In that race, the atomic bomb represented a potential shortcut for the US.Akira Iriye is an orthodox historian working at Harvard. He also really does not get along with Tsuyoshi Hasegawa thanks to a series of open letters they exchanged at the time of publication for Racing the Enemy.

Podcast Merchandise!

Support the show! Buy me a coffee!

Podcast Merchandise

You can also buy podcast merchandise here to support the show. Send some money my way and help get the word out about the podcast at the same time!

This week, we cover exciting topics like meteorology and internal Mongol family politics! But wait, there's also a bit of Zen theology dashed in to spice things up! It's an eclectic week on the podcast for sure!

This week: where did the Mongol Empire come from, and who was in charge when they decided to come after Japan? Also, why is the Kamakura shogunate the most convoluted form of government in a history of convoluted governments?

All you could ever want to know about podcast recording, UW's graduate program, and why the Japanese definitely are not part of the 10 lost tribes of Israel! That and more! Thank you all for 200 great episodes!

In which we bring things to a close by considering the fall of the Butokukai, the spread of budo beyond Japan, the role of martial arts in the African-American community, the question of Olympic sport status, and the challenge of the UFC. It's gonna be a busy week.